Interdum rapere occupat.--Horace.

Between and are houses which are remarkable for the following circumstance :--Sir Thomas Lyttleton, Speaker of the in , lived in of these, and next door to him the father of the celebrated Bishop Burnet.

Here Burnet and Sir Thomas spent much of their time together; and it was the custom of the latter, when he had any great business to transact in Parliament, to talk it over previously with Burnet, who was to act the part of devil's advocate, by bringing forward against it every conceivable argument, true or false.

, the next street westward from , was built in , on a part of the site of Arundel House and grounds. Most of the houses in this street have of late been used as private hotels; but there are or which call for special mention. At No. are the offices of the Royal Farmers' and General Insurance Company.

About half way down on the western side is House, the home of a sisterhood of ladies belonging to the English Church, who devote their lives to the work of nursing the sick poor, and of training up a body of nurses really fitted for that work. It was founded in , under the modest title of

The Training Institution for Nurses in Hospitals, Families, and the Poor,

In the sisterhood supplied some of the nurses who accompanied Miss Nightingale to the Crimea, whither more of their number were dispatched in the following year. In the sisters removed to , having entered on the work of nursing the patients in Hospital. The sisters wear a distinctive dress, with a small cross and medal. Besides Hospital, the sisters of House nurse the patients in , and those of the Galignani English Hospital at Paris. They also dispense annually about diets, which are supplied for the use of convalescent patients by the members of the Order of St. John. In this invaluable institution everything is carried out on the voluntary principle, and although it is styled a

sisterhood,

vows of poverty, monastic obedience, or celibacy ;

no cloistered seclusion, but a full, free, and willing devotion to the great cause of Christian charity.

The Conservative Land Society have offices at No. , . The society, which has done good service towards increasing the influence of the Conservative party among the middle classes, was formed in , and such was its progress and prosperity that in it was found necessary to enlarge the premises by the acquisition of the adjoining house at the corner of .

Among the notabilities who have resided in may be named Dr. Birch, the historian of the Royal Society, and John Hamilton Mortimer, the painter, styled

the English Salvator Rosa.

Supper at Mortimer's

Wine and Walnuts,

We learn from Sir John Hawkins's

Life of Doctor Johnson

On Monday night the Czar of Muscovy arrived from Holland, and went directly to the house prepared for him in

Norfolk Street

, near the water-side.

, built about the same time, is described by Strype as

replenished with good buildings.

front the Thames,

towards the river,

the Hon. Charles Howard, Esq., brother to Henry, Duke of Norfolk.

Voltaire, as we learn from his life, when in London, paid a visit to Will Congreve, who was living in this street, and who also died in it.

On this and on other occasions,

Congreve affected to be thought a man of fashion rather than of wit, on which Voltaire remarked, with his usual cynicism, that if he had been only a gentleman, he should not have come thither to visit him.

, which runs at right angles across the centre of , from Arundel to , consists of houses now almost all let out as

lodgings for single gentlemen,

his Majesty's servants

Handbook of London:

A gallant of the town, a Captain Richard Hill, had conceived what Cibber calls a tendre, or passion for Mrs. Bracegirdle, the beautiful actress. He is said to have offered her his hand, and to have been refused. His passion at last became ungovernable, and he at once determined on carrying her off by force. For this purpose he borrowed a suit of night linen of Mrs. Radd, the landlady in whose house in Buckingham Court he lodged, induced his friend Lord Mohun to assist him in his attempt, dodged the fair actress for a whole day at the theatre, stationed a coach near the Horseshoe Tavern, in Drury Lane, to carry her off in, and hired six soldiers to force her into it as she returned from supping with Mr. Page, in Princes Street (off Drury Lane), to her own lodging in the house of a Mrs. Dorothy Brown, in this street. As the beautiful actress came down Drury Lane, about ten at night, accompanied by her mother and brother, and escorted by her friend, Mr. Page, one of the soldiers seized her in his arms, and endeavoured to force her into the coach. Page resisting the attempt, Hill drew his sword, and struck a blow at Page's head, which fell, however, only on his hand. The lady's screams drew a rabble about her, and Hill, finding his endeavours ineffectual, bid the soldiers let her go. Lord Mohun, who was in the coach all this time, now stepped out of it, and with his friend Hill, insisted on seeing the lady home, Mr. Page accompanying them, and remaining with Mrs. Bracegirdle for some time after for her better security.

Disappointed in their object, Lord Mohun and Captain Hill remained in the street, Hill with his sword drawn, and vowing revenge, as he had done before, to Mrs. Bracegirdle on her way home. Here they sent to the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane, for a bottle of canary, of which they drank in the middle of the street. In the meantime Mrs. Bracegirdle sent her servant to her friend Mr. Mountfort's house in Norfolk Street adjoining, to know if he was at home. The servant returned with an answer that he was not, and was sent again by her mistress to desire Mrs. Mountfort to send to her husband to take care of himself: in regard my Lord Mohun and Captain Hill, who (she feared) had no good intention toward him, did wait in the street.

Mountfort was sought for in several places without success, but Mohun and Hill had not waited long before he turned the corner of Norfolk Street, with, it is said by one witness (Captain Hill's servant), his sword over his arm. It appears in the evidence before the coroner, that he had heard while in Norfolk Street (if not before) of the attempt to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle, and was also aware that Lord Mohun and Hill were in the street; for Mrs. Brown, the landlady of the house in which Mrs. Bracegirdle lodged, solicited him to keep away. Every precaution was, however, ineffectual. He addressed Lord Mohun (who embraced him, it would appear, very tenderly), and said how sorry he was to find that he (Lord Mohun) would justify the rudeness of Captain Hill, or keep company with such a pitiful fellow, or words to the like effect. And then, says Thomas Leak, the Captain's servant, the Captain came forward and said he would justify himself, and went toward the middle of the street, and Mr. Mountfort followed him and drew. Ann Jones, a servant (it would appear, in Mrs. Bracegirdle's house), declared in evidence that Hill came behind Mountfort and gave him a box on the ear, and bade him draw. It is said they fought. Mountfort certainly fell, with a desperate wound on the right side of the belly, near the short rib, of which he died the next day, assuring Mr. Page, while lying on the floor in his own parlour, as Page declares in evidence, that Hill ran him through the body before he could draw the sword. Lord Mohun affirmed they fought, and that he saw a piece of Mountfort's sword lying on the ground. As Mountfort fell, Hill ran off, and the Duchy watch coming up, Lord Mohun surrendered himself, with his sword still in the scabbard.

The scene of this sad tragedy was that part of Howard Street lying between Norfolk Street and Surrey Street. Mountfort's house was two doors from the south-west corner. Mountfort was a handsome man, and Hill is said to have attributed his rejection by Mrs. Bracegirdle to her love for Mountfort, an unlikely passion it is thought, as Mountfort was a married man, with a good-looking wife of his own, afterwards Mrs. Verbruggen, and a celebrated actress withal. Mountfort (only thirty-three when he died) lies buried in the adjoining church of St. Clement Danes.

Mrs. Bracegirdle continued to inhabit her old quarters for very many years.

Above

forty

years since,

I saw at Mrs. Bracegirdle's house in

Howard Street

a picture of Mrs. Barry, by Sir G. Kneller, in the same apartments with the portraits of Betterton and Congreve.

Mrs. Bracegirdle, born in , was known as of the most attractive and fascinating of our earliest actresses, and it is said that every of her male audience became her lover, or at all events her admirer. Her chastity was remarkable, and her virtue

as impregnable as the rock of Gibraltar.

that Diana of the

stage before whom Congreve and Lord Lovelace, at the head of a troop of bodkined fops, worshipped in vain.

This troop of fops, it may be added, would sometimes include the Dukes of Devonshire and Dorset and the [extra_illustrations.3.83.1] ; amongst whom it is said that the latter remarked at a coffee-house day,

Come, you are always praising the lady's virtue: why then do you not reward the lady who will not sell it?

Four

times that amount was raised,

and with it the nobles, with their swords in their hands, waited on Mrs. Bracegirdle

who accepted the testimonial.

Mrs. Bracegirdle was very kind to the poor, and especially to the poorer members of her profession. She is described by Aston as

of a lovely height, with dark brown hair and eyebrows, black sparkling eyes, and a fresh blushing complexion; and whenever she exerted herself, had an involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, and face, having continually a cheerful aspect and a fine set of even white teeth, and never making an exit without leaving the audience in imitation of her pleasant countenance.

she inspired the best authors to write for her; and

two

of them (Rowe and Congreve), when they gave her a lover in a play, seemed palpably to plead their own passions, and make their private court to her in fictitious characters.

But there is a reverse to this exquisite medal. In Spence's

Anecdotes,

Colley Cibber,

Congreve was very intimate with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived in the same street with her, his house being very near hers, until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough.

This scandal would seem to have been confirmed by the voice of contemporary testimony. Lord Macaulay calls her, however, a

cold, vain, interested coquette, who perfectly understood how much the influence of her own charms was increased by the fame of a severity which cost her nothing, and who could venture to flirt with a succession of admirers in the just confidence that the flame which she might kindle in them would thaw her own ice.

All publicly espouse the dame,

And say, Confound the town.

Thackeray confirms the above account of the attempted seizure of Mrs. Bracegirdle, which, he says, occurred

opposite to my Lord Craven's house in

Drury Lane

, by the door of which she was to pass on her way from the theatre.

Mr. Page called for help; the population of

Drury Lane

rose; it was impossible to effect the capture; and so, bidding the soldiers to go about their business, and the coach to drive off, Hill let go of his prey sulkily, and he waited for other opportunities of revenge.

she equally delighted in melting tenderness and playful coquetry; ..... and even at an advanced age, when she played Angelica in

Love for Love

, for Betterton's benefit, she retained all her powers of pleasing.

At time, as our readers will remember, when it had been resolved to erect the long-expected buildings for the New Law Courts of the future, even after the site between and had been cleared, it was in contemplation to erect them on the ground which lies between and the Thames ; and Mr. G. E. Street, the architect to whom this work has been entrusted, has printed his reasons for preferring the site between the Strand and the river as preferable both aesthetically and also practically. But into these we need not enter, as the subject has passed out of the range of discussion.

In the long run, however, the idea of site was negatived by the Art Commissioners, and the Legislature in fixed definitely and conclusively that the Law Courts of the future are to stand, as we have already said, between the Strand and . In fact, the building of them has already made considerable progress. , , , , and will therefore be allowed to remain , and it is to be hoped that the new Temple of Themis will answer all the purposes for which Mr. Street has designed it.

[extra_illustrations.3.83.1] Earl of Halifax

[extra_illustrations.3.83.2] Nicholas Rowe